<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>vae victis (woe to the conquered) by scarletite</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23820448">vae victis (woe to the conquered)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletite/pseuds/scarletite'>scarletite</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Twilight Series - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Diverges mid-New Moon, F/F, Twilight Renaissance, Unhealthy Relationships</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:02:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,251</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23820448</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletite/pseuds/scarletite</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I won’t be a monster.”</p><p>Victoria throws her head back, laughs long and hard. “Oh, my dear. You already are.”</p><p>[Or: Even without the Cullens, Bella Swan was always destined to become a vampire. One way, or another.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bella Swan/Victoria, Brief Bella Swan/Tanya</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>405</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>vae victis (woe to the conquered)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Laurent is the one that warns her.</p><p>His eyes burn through her, as he promises her a quick death, a kind death.</p><p>A pittance, he says, compared to what Victoria will do.</p><p>Will, not would. </p><p> </p><p>The wolves save her.</p><p>Just.</p><p>But they know, now, what the threat is.</p><p>Know enough about her to give her a name: Victoria.</p><p> </p><p>The scarlet-haired vampire wants her.</p><p>Wants to torture Bella, to crack her open and break her apart, to reap her vengeance.  </p><p>Bella is hysterical with the thought of it.</p><p>Not just for herself, but for Charlie and Jake and everybody else who loves her.</p><p>Because she has never cared overmuch for her own life, but she has seen how loss has shaped those around her, and wants Charlie to never have to cry over her again.</p><p> </p><p>She sleeps fitfully, most night.</p><p>Has nightmares of fire in her veins and smashed mirrors and crimson hair in freezing water.</p><p>Some nights she doesn’t sleep at all.</p><p> </p><p>The wolves do what they can.</p><p>They prowl in the woods behind her house, bundle her off to La Push every weekend, keep her busy with barbecues and bonfires.</p><p>She goes on hikes with Jake.</p><p>She sits on the porch with Charlie and Billy, sneaks sips of beer when they aren’t looking.</p><p>It almost feels like normal.</p><p>It is almost like having a second family.</p><p>(She has had one of those before.)</p><p> </p><p>And she forgets, just for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>A moment is all it takes.</p><p> </p><p>“I have been waiting for you.”</p><p>A moment of weakness, with thoughts of Edward and Alice and soft days spent among her second family, has driven her here.</p><p>All she had wanted was a glimpse.</p><p>To remember, just once, that she belonged here. That it was not all a dream.</p><p>The Cullen’s house is supposed to be empty.</p><p>It is not.</p><p> </p><p>“You and I,” Victoria purrs against her neck, “are going to have so much fun.”</p><p>Bella screams—for Jake, for Edward, for anyone.</p><p>The chuckle in her ear is soft, sinister. “Screaming won’t do you any good.”</p><p> </p><p>The teeth clamp down.</p><p>Victoria drinks and drinks and drinks.</p><p>Bella thinks she won’t stop, that she’ll be left on the floor, a desiccated corpse.</p><p> </p><p>She is not so lucky.</p><p> </p><p>Victoria lets her go, just before she fades to black.</p><p>She kisses Bella behind the ear, chin stained crimson.</p><p>“I’ll see you soon, darling.”</p><p> </p><p>A girl goes to bed a girl.</p><p>The same girl wakes up a monster.</p><p> </p><p>(In this world, there are no fairy tale endings.)</p><p> </p><p>The flames burn and rage and smolder.</p><p>And then, alongside her heart, they stop.</p><p> </p><p>Bella’s eyes open, crimson.</p><p> </p><p>Victoria sidesteps her, bats her to the side like a fly.</p><p>She snarls, deep and dark and raring for more. She rolls back to her feet, launches herself again.</p><p>“You’re gorgeous,” Victoria smirks, leaping over her. “We can make use of that.”</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, she goes down.</p><p>With Victoria standing over her, she gasps for breaths she no longer needs.</p><p>She stares up at her, at red hair and redder eyes, reads the promise in them.</p><p>“Done?” </p><p>Bella snarls, lower, softer than any she’s made.</p><p>“Excellent.”</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, defeat gives way to thirst.</p><p>Her throat aches, parched, like a woman who has walked thousands of miles through a desert.</p><p>“Hungry?” Victoria asks.</p><p> </p><p>And, though her humanity has been stripped away, she remembers.</p><p>She is stubborn.</p><p>She is her own.</p><p>She is a Swan.</p><p> </p><p>(Even in death, we carry the things that make us.)</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t be a monster.”</p><p>Victoria throws her head back, laughs long and hard. “Oh, my dear. You already are.”</p><p> </p><p>The craving is a desperate, clawing thing. </p><p>It scrapes and scratches in her ribcage, roils in her and rages and burns without end.</p><p>There is a fire in her veins.</p><p>She refuses to stoke it.</p><p>“My sweet, foolish girl,” Victoria smiles, but there is nothing nice about it. “This only goes one way.”</p><p>Bella bares her teeth. “Fuck you.”</p><p> </p><p>She starves herself for thirteen spiteful, aching days.</p><p> </p><p>She paces up and down the house, a caged predator.</p><p>All hours of the night and day, she prowls and growls through the walls of the house she once thought of as a second home. </p><p>The house shows signs of her restlessness, in cracked windows and books ripped apart at the covers.</p><p>She destroys everything around her, tense and crackling like a live wire.</p><p>Victoria watches Bella with a hawk’s eyes. “I won’t let you starve, sweet thing.”</p><p>Bella snarls at her.</p><p> </p><p>On day fourteen, Victoria brings home a boy.</p><p>He is twenty-something, with warm brown eyes and sandy hair. </p><p>Bella sits coiled on their armchair like a python, wears cracks in the wood.</p><p>She watches Victoria play with him, like a mountain lion batting at its food. Watches her play with his hair, whisper in his ear, curl her fingers in his sleeve and laugh like she’s the only one in on a hilarious joke.</p><p>“What do you think, darling?” Victoria asks, eyes burning over the boy’s shoulder. “Shall we have some fun?”</p><p>Bella meets crimson eyes with her own dark, thirsty ones. </p><p>Her lip curls.</p><p>The boy, oblivious, opens his mouth. “I—”</p><p>Victoria cuts his throat open with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>Bella drinks him dry on their living room floor.</p><p> </p><p>When she comes back to herself, she is coated in blood.</p><p>His face is still, the light gone from his eyes.</p><p>She drops him to the floor and retches.</p><p>The beast in her veins purrs, the tight claws in her ribcage easing to soft scrapes.</p><p>Victoria smiles. “Good girl.”</p><p>Bella glares back, with eyes are scarlet as her captor’s hair.</p><p> </p><p>Afterwards, she cries.</p><p>Vampires can’t physically cry, of course.</p><p>But she sobs, screams, slams her fist right through the tiled shower wall.</p><p>At her feet, the drain runs pink. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It is both harder and easier after that.</p><p>She looks at Victoria as one might a corrupt warden.</p><p>She cages Bella; doesn’t hesitate to throw her around if she gets angry, or grip her tightly by her hair when she dreams about ripping Victoria’s throat out.</p><p>In the same way, she’s all Bella has.</p><p>In this stolen home, she teaches her what it means to be a vampire, the rules, and brings her food even when she refuses to eat it. Forces it through her, smiling all the while.</p><p> </p><p>Once every few days, Victoria brings home a new toy.</p><p>She works them up, dazzles them, dangles them in front of Bella like a shiny prize.</p><p>Never once does Bella touch them herself.</p><p>She refuses.</p><p>Victoria has had hundreds of years to forget her morals.</p><p>Bella has had her entire life to create them.</p><p> </p><p>(Humanity is pesky; it endures.)</p><p> </p><p>But morals can’t always prevent tragedy.</p><p>They walk in circles, an intricate dance.</p><p>Bella strings herself out as thin as she can, until bruises form beneath her eyes and the color disappears from them.</p><p>She sits and wastes, stares out big glass windows into woods she loves and hates.</p><p> </p><p>The dance always ends the same way.</p><p>With throats slashed, and frantic feeding, and gentle hands combing through her hair.</p><p>And Bella bows out, yet again.</p><p>Steps aside.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, Victoria always pulls her back in.</p><p> </p><p>In the interludes, they orbit around each other.</p><p>Victoria leaves her to her devices, lets her snarl and scowl and bluster.</p><p>At times, Bella steps to the window or the porch. Pretends she might leave.</p><p>They both know she won’t. </p><p>She can’t.</p><p> </p><p>Bella can’t bring herself to call Edward’s room, with its couch and its music and its memories, her home.</p><p>Instead, she drifts into Emmett and Rosalie’s.</p><p>She sits in the unfamiliar room, with its big long curtains and afternoon sun, and pretends that this is all a dream and she’s going to wake up tomorrow safe in her own bed.</p><p> </p><p>Rosalie would hate it, she thinks.</p><p>It’s almost enough to make her smile.</p><p> </p><p>(She remembers a fierce woman, who fought family tooth and nail to keep her human.)</p><p>(She wonders what Rose would think of this.)</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, over the weeks, she gains enough control to read through the books in the house without shredding them.</p><p>She goes to Carlisle’s study, for a while.</p><p>He had taken many tomes and valuables, but his collection still remains. Enough novels to stock a small library, pristine and new as the day they were printed, worth more than their house.</p><p>Victoria has made a home behind his desk, feet up and lip curled as she goes through his things.</p><p>Once, Bella would have snarled at her to leave his things alone.</p><p>Now, she quietly picks a book of his bookshelf—a first edition Austen—and begins reading.</p><p> </p><p>Their dance ends the day that Victoria brings home Mike Newton.</p><p>She guides him in, slow, like a rowboat after a barge.</p><p>Bella is in Rosalie’s bed, watching her skin sparkle in the sun—the skin of a killer, Edward had once said; she finally knows what that means now.</p><p>“So, I’ve never seen you around before?”</p><p>His voice calls to her, itching in the back of her head.</p><p>Her human memories are already fading, only a few weeks (months? years?) on. </p><p>But she knows him, recognizes the voice without conscious thought. </p><p>“I’m new in town,” Victoria purrs.</p><p>She hears his breath hitch, in the way they all do. Victoria is beautiful, knows how to use it to her advantage.</p><p>“Oh, cool, cool.” </p><p>Bella speeds down the stairs, before she can help herself.</p><p>She swings around the corner like a madwoman, leaving cracks in the plaster. “Not him!”</p><p>Mike looks at her, mouth agape.</p><p>“Bella?”</p><p> </p><p>Victoria pauses, arm around his shoulders.</p><p>“Well, we can’t have that.”</p><p>She snaps his neck.</p><p> </p><p>Bella shrieks.</p><p> </p><p>“This is the way things are,” Victoria says, after. “It will hurt less if you accept it.”</p><p>Bella glares back, mouth stained crimson and eyes filled with tears she can’t shed. </p><p>“Fuck you,” she whispers, brokenly.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>After Mike, they can’t stay much longer.</p><p>She knows that Victoria must be cutting a swathe through Forks.</p><p>It is a small town, and so many deaths can’t go unnoticed.</p><p> </p><p>She swears, sometimes, that she hears howls on the horizon.</p><p>(She pretends she doesn't know what that means.)</p><p> </p><p>Victoria returns one day, shouldering her jacket and pulling on boots she barely wears.</p><p>Her hair is wild, eyes too.</p><p>There's a fine, spider-webbed crack on her shoulder; two punctures, that look like bite wounds.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re leaving.”</p><p>And Bella, she snarls. “I won’t go anywhere with you.”</p><p>“You won’t survive without me,” Victoria retorts.</p><p> </p><p>She thinks of forests, of animals, of vampires with golden eyes who smiled like she meant something.</p><p>Then, she thinks of bodies carried away in the night, of crimson stains left on soft white carpets.</p><p>Her lip curls. </p><p>“I don’t need you.”</p><p> </p><p>And Victoria laughs.</p><p>“Those beasts of yours will tear you apart.”</p><p>“They would be doing me a favor.”</p><p>“Oh, don’t mistake me, sweetheart.” She reaches out, draws Bella in by her neck. She pulls her hair to side, bares the scar in her throat. The smile she flashes makes it throb with the memory. “You don’t have a choice.”</p><p> </p><p>She looks, then, to the great glass wall behind Victoria’s shoulder.</p><p>The treetops sway and shift, and somewhere within them, a wolf hunt continues.</p><p>Victoria grips her by her hair, tugs sharply until she’s forced to stand on tiptoes and stare deep into her eyes.</p><p>"We are leaving."</p><p>Bella rumbles, deep and low in her throat.</p><p>The eye contact holds.</p><p>When she looks away, Victoria purrs.</p><p> </p><p>And so, they do.</p><p>Wolves dog their escape, all gnashing teeth and war-like howls.</p><p> </p><p>A large, russet wolf almost catches her.</p><p>Their eyes meet, as it catches her jacket.</p><p><em>Jake</em>, she thinks.</p><p>He stumbles, whimpers, lets her go.</p><p> </p><p>In another life, she could have been his.</p><p>She remembers him, his soft fur, and how it felt to stand encapsulated at his side: safe, secure.</p><p>She remembers his warmth, his kindness, how he helped her carry on, after.</p><p> </p><p>"I'm sorry."</p><p>Bella turns away.</p><p> </p><p>She follows where Victoria leads; across hills, rivers, mountains. </p><p>She follows her, even after the wolves fall back.</p><p> </p><p>(The distant, mournful howl will haunt her for weeks to come.)</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Time passes in a blur, afterwards.</p><p>Bella hates Victoria, hates herself, hates this life that's been forced upon her.</p><p>She wonders, sometimes, whether it would have been better to let the wolves catch her. </p><p> </p><p>But life—or whatever farce they play at it—moves on.</p><p> </p><p>It is a constant exercise in control, every day.</p><p>Victoria doesn't shy away from towns and cities, seems to delight in dragging Bella through crowds and watching her fists shake with the effort to hold herself back.</p><p> </p><p>"So curious," Victoria murmurs, eyes heavy on her one day.</p><p>Bella's nails are digging so sharply into her hand, that it makes a groaning sound. "What?" she bites out.</p><p>Victoria reaches out, lays a hand on her cheek.</p><p>Bella snarls, low and feral.</p><p>She <em>feels </em>her eyes change, from red to black.</p><p>"I think," Victoria says slowly, unmoving, with a strange twinkle in her eyes, "that this life suits you."</p><p> </p><p>That night, they stop over in an abandoned warehouse.</p><p>She goes for Victoria with her teeth, hands like claws.</p><p>As always, Victoria only laughs, dodges out of the way without effort. </p><p>The sounds of the nearby port drowns out the cracks and bangs, like thunder claps, as she's knocked to the ground again and again.</p><p> </p><p>It takes hours before Victoria presses her down to worn concrete, face-first.</p><p>"Careful, darling," she purrs in Bella's ear. "Spirit like that? I might see need to break it."</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Bella still refuses to partake in human blood, unless forced.</p><p>"Helpless," Victoria scoffs. "A waste."</p><p>But Victoria, for her part, does not seem to mind providing for Bella.</p><p>There is a certain pride in Victoria’s eyes when she drops another bloodied human in front of Bella. Like a mother lion, providing for a cub that hasn’t learned to hunt.</p><p> </p><p>Victoria’s preferred hunting grounds are alleys, clubs and bars.</p><p>She walks through those places like she owns them, practically glowing in the hazy lights. An otherworldly creature.</p><p>She lures them in, drags them away with soft smiles and her sweet voice.</p><p>Bella always watches from the shadows, regret and turmoil and thirst raging in her chest.</p><p>She doesn’t want to watch.</p><p>It makes her sick, watching men and women tumble at their feet. To see them—some innocent and some not, but human all the same—fall in a bloody trail behind them.</p><p> </p><p>She itches to leave.</p><p>She doesn’t have anywhere to go.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know how you do it. Be a monster.”</p><p>“Humans can be monsters, too,” Victoria retorts, teeth stained red. She drops her meal. He lands to the ground with a thump, dead. “We can only be what we are made to be. It is the circle of life.”</p><p>Bella turns her back. “I am not a monster.”</p><p>“Oh, my sweet Bella.” A pale hand catches her hair, drags her backwards. The crimson eyes brighten when Bella snarls. The smile is sharp as a razor’s edge. “You know that’s a lie.”</p><p> </p><p>(Even the tamest of pets, when pushed far enough, can bite the hand that feeds.)</p><p> </p><p>Bella leaves on a Tuesday.</p><p>She watches Victoria laugh across the table from her, cozied up against a brunette with doe-eyes and a heart-shaped face, and feels the sight of her rattle her all the way to her bones.</p><p>The girl is young, too young.</p><p>She looks at Victoria like she's hung the sky, dotted the stars.</p><p> </p><p>Feigning a need for air, she gets up from the table and steps out.</p><p>Victoria watches her, eyes smoldering. </p><p> </p><p>She’s halfway across the eastern seaboard by the time she stops running.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Victoria finds her, more than a month later; silent and hollowed-out, in a fisherman’s home.</p><p>There is an old body on the sofa with her, eyes milky and neck torn apart.</p><p>Victoria doesn’t smile, this time.</p><p>She takes her by the hand, pulls her to her feet.</p><p>She tucks a strand of Bella’s hair behind her ear, gazes into her crimson eyes like she can see through every molecule that makes her up.</p><p>“Don’t run from me again.”</p><p> </p><p>She doesn’t.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They settle into a routine, after that.</p><p>Victoria leaves Bella out of the playtime, out of her cat and mouse games.</p><p>She leaves her in parks, or libraries, or book stores; warmer places, kinder places, where she can almost pretend she’s a normal human girl, living a normal human life. Victoria allows her to wander, content she will return.</p><p>They always meet, at the end of the night.</p><p>It’s like there’s an invisible tether between them, a gravity well, pulling them back together.</p><p> </p><p>She always ignores the look of pleasure in Victoria’s eyes, now, when she sinks her teeth into pliant necks without prompting.</p><p> </p><p>Her control is getting good, very good—</p><p>“Far, far better than it should be,” Victoria muses more than once, with sharp eyes. “But, I suppose the newborn bloodlust couldn’t last forever. Congratulations.”</p><p> </p><p>When she looks at the calendar, she’s shocked to realize it’s been almost two years. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The worst part, is there are times when she thinks she could <em>like </em>Victoria.</p><p> </p><p>She is a predator, hidden beneath a soft face and a sweet voice.</p><p>Her beauty is devastation, has been the end of so many short lives.</p><p>There is a grace in her step, experience in her eyes, and knowledge in every word she speaks.</p><p> </p><p>She could almost forget.</p><p>Somewhere, between art galleries and museums and tepid lake water.</p><p>Through disgusted mutters about impressionism, through scoffs at historical inaccuracies, or in laughter as she's thrown into dark water.</p><p>Could forget what they are.</p><p> </p><p>Her world revolves around Victoria, in its own sick way.</p><p>And Victoria's, her. </p><p> </p><p>In fleeting, simple moments.</p><p>They could almost be friends.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>She's behind the wheel of a stolen convertible.</p><p>She's doing 125 in a 80, pushing faster, harder, to the very limits.</p><p>Victoria's feet are on the dash.</p><p>Her hair blazes like wildfire in the wind.</p><p>Music plays, so loud, she can feel it in her bones.</p><p>"You should put your seat belt on," Bella says.</p><p> </p><p>Victoria laughs and laughs and laughs.</p><p> </p><p>And Bella, she laughs too.</p><p>Laughs, with tears that won't shed and flashes teeth as hard as diamond. </p><p>Laughs, because it's all she can do.</p><p> </p><p>Victoria turns the music louder.</p><p>She tosses her a warm, red-eyed grin.</p><p>Then, she buckles her seatbelt.</p><p> </p><p>It's the closest Bella's felt to happy, since this began.</p><p>She could just close her eyes.</p><p>Embrace the moment.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Waiting, behind her eyelids, is Mike Newton's shocked face—</p><p>Her ears ring with the crack of a neck—</p><p>And it is fresh, and warm, and <em>delicious—</em></p><p> </p><p>She forces her eyes open.</p><p> </p><p>(His blood still lingers in her mouth, on bad days.)</p><p>(It tastes unforgivable.)</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They find themselves in the wilds of Alaska, eventually.</p><p>Bella likes the calm, the quiet. </p><p>The cold doesn’t feel quite as bad, now, and she likes that the people are spread out.</p><p>It is easier to breathe here, more peaceful. </p><p> </p><p>(If she closes her eyes, it almost feels like her first and only winter in Forks.)</p><p>(She wonders, quietly, where Charlie is now.)</p><p> </p><p>Victoria doesn’t seem to mind the cold overly much, either.</p><p>She’s donning a large, fluffy coat, similar to the one Bella had first met her in.</p><p>She still walks barefoot, prowling softly like a snow leopard. </p><p> </p><p>When she catches Bella looking, she tosses her hair over her shoulder—a lick of fire, spattered with snowflakes—and takes off at a run.</p><p> </p><p>Helpless to the pull, Bella follows.</p><p> </p><p>They dart through the forest.</p><p>Victoria cackles when she knocks her through snow drifts.</p><p>Bella does, too, when she manages to flick a branch full of snow full-force into Victoria's face.</p><p>It is a cat-and-mouse of its own.</p><p>It is a race, a chase, as much a hunt as any other.</p><p> </p><p>They run for hours, days, maybe even weeks.</p><p>Victoria stops to drink, periodically.</p><p>Bella, hunger curling in her ribs, refrains.</p><p> </p><p>Although her eyes shine with distaste, Victoria does not say anything.</p><p>They both know her control only stretches so far.</p><p> </p><p>(They learn new footwork, fancy tricks, but they are still performing the same dance.)</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>At some point, they cross into claimed territory.</p><p>The smell is sharp, sweet, but it lacks the tang and the bite that cloys the air around Victoria.</p><p>It makes something familiar prickle in the back of her brain.</p><p> </p><p>Victoria freezes. "Animal drinkers."</p><p>Bella sucks in an unnecessary breath. </p><p>Victoria takes one look at her, at the sudden spark in her eyes, and snarls.</p><p> </p><p>A rift opens up between them, then.</p><p>Their years together stretch out between them, flying by like they had that night on the Interstate, but moving in reverse.</p><p> </p><p>She doesn't have Victoria's preternatural sense for danger, doesn't need it.</p><p>Alarms firing, Bella turns her head to the distance. "Edwa—"</p><p> </p><p>Victoria descends on her.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They fall into the snow, scrabbling and fighting in a way they haven't for a long time.</p><p>The woods resound with the force of it, catastrophic.</p><p>Victoria slams her through the snow, bodies clashing with a crack like a thunderclap.</p><p> </p><p>(Victoria is a predator, through and through.)</p><p>(And she forgets, so often, that she's always been the prey.)</p><p> </p><p>They roar and rage through the snow, destroy the clearing and each other.</p><p>Bella is weak, half-starved but drunk with <em>need</em>.</p><p>She roils against Victoria, fights tooth and nail, even manages to sink her teeth a hard wrist.</p><p> </p><p>Victoria jams the cracking arm against her jaw, forces her back and down.</p><p>Bella snarls, ferocious.</p><p>She struggles, ripping and tearing and biting so hard she swears she can taste bone.</p><p> </p><p>It lasts, until Victoria's fangs bite into her shoulder.</p><p>She rips old scars open, drinks Bella's venom like she once had her blood.</p><p>She bites and holds and <em>yanks</em>.</p><p> </p><p>"<em>Victoria</em>," Bella gasps.</p><p>And the fight, it drains away in an instant.</p><p>It leaves her panting, shaking, for reasons she can't name.</p><p> </p><p>Victoria's wrecked arm comes up, spattering Bella's cheek with venom, and clenches tight in her hair.</p><p>She forces her head to tilt.</p><p>She bites, hard, harder than she ever has.</p><p>Bella whines; sudden, low in her throat.</p><p> </p><p>The redhead releases her, slowly, jerkily, drags herself up. </p><p>Bella stares up at her, eyes like coal.</p><p>The redhead looks evenly back at her, so close their noses brush.</p><p>"You are mine."</p><p> </p><p>A moment passes, frozen like the ground beneath them.</p><p> </p><p>Bella looks up at her, blinks once, twice. “I know.”</p><p> </p><p>Victoria's shoulders twitch.</p><p>She looks deep into her eyes, for a moment longer.</p><p>"Don't forget."</p><p>Then, she is gone.</p><p> </p><p>Bella blinks, and she is alone.</p><p>She looks up at the sky, swears she counts eight crows ascend from the treetops. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>"I am Tanya Denali. This is my family."</p><p>There are so many of them.</p><p>An entire coven of vampires, eyes glimmering like gold. </p><p> </p><p>(It is not them.)</p><p>(She doesn't know what to do with that.)</p><p> </p><p>They stand over her in the snow.</p><p>She lays there like a corpse, as Tanya kneels over her.</p><p>"Poor thing," she breathes. "What has been done to you."</p><p> </p><p>The family argue over her.</p><p>They do not try to hide it, they lay things out plain in front of her.</p><p>She appreciates their honesty.</p><p> </p><p>"The girl is a human drinker. Young, too."</p><p>Tanya laughs, rich and warm. "As we all were, once upon a time."</p><p>"If she's killed here, we could be held accountable."</p><p>"Look at her," Tanya retorts. "She hasn't fed in weeks, maybe more."</p><p> </p><p>Bella looks away from them, up into the full moon.</p><p>"I don't kill people."</p><p>Her voice is rough to her own ears.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They decide to keep her, in the end.</p><p> </p><p>She sits on their sofa like a rescued puppy.</p><p>Tanya bundles her shivering frame under a blanket she doesn't need.</p><p>"I'm not cold."</p><p>"Of course," Tanya replies, taking a tie from her wrist and gathering Bella's hair into a neat bun. "But what are we, but lifeless, if we allow ourselves forget the pleasures of simple things."</p><p> </p><p>They bring her blood.</p><p>She smells it when they rip the bag open.</p><p>The one called Kate brings it to her in a cup.</p><p>It is human, warmed, but stale and old.</p><p> </p><p>Her stomach turns.</p><p>She drinks down every drop.</p><p> </p><p>"So," Tanya says, when she is done. "What is your name?"</p><p>She licks her lips, eyes red as rubies.</p><p>"Bella Swan."</p><p>Tanya's eyes, a shade darker, shine back at her. "It is very, very nice to meet you."</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It takes two days for her shoulder to heal.</p><p>It is a slow, limping thing.</p><p>But the human blood does it job, lets her body take hold and regenerate the damage.</p><p> </p><p>"Will they come for you again?"</p><p>Bella steps out of the shower, towel around her.</p><p>Kate, perched on the edge of the vanity, stares at her shoulder.</p><p>It is not a pretty sight, she knows.</p><p>When she looks in the mirror, the scar there is different; darker, larger, heavier.</p><p>It throbs, pulses like a heartbeat.</p><p>"I don't know."</p><p> </p><p>Vampires can't cry.</p><p>Bella's eyes remain clouded for the rest of the day.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Tanya sits next to her, on the fifth day.</p><p>She's watching the sunrise, as she always does.</p><p>Tanya leans back on her palms, cranes her neck to the sky and blinks slowly at the horizon.</p><p>"What is it you see up there?"</p><p> </p><p>Bella doesn't speak for a long time.</p><p>When she does, the fringes of the sky are burning absolute crimson.</p><p>"Everything."</p><p> </p><p>Tanya looks at her, for a small eternity.</p><p>The oversized sweater Bella wears has slipped at the shoulder, bares her scarred neck.</p><p>"I think," she reaches over, straightens the collar, "that gold is more your color."</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>She learns their ways, in bits and pieces.</p><p> </p><p>How hard to hit a deer, to kill it in a single leap.</p><p>How often to hunt to stave off the burning in her throat.</p><p>How to walk quietly, speak softly, and be kind once again.</p><p> </p><p>And, in Tanya, she learns how to open her heart.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>"You're a good dancer," Tanya says, whirling her around the patio.</p><p>Kate twists the dial on the vinyl player, volume growing louder with the crescendo.</p><p>"You should have seen me in a past life," Bella retorts, hair loose around her shoulders. </p><p>Tanya spins her through another loop; sends her out and then back in. </p><p>Vampires can't get dizzy, but Bella very much feels off balance, looking up into her twinkling eyes.</p><p>Tanya smiles. "I very much like you in this one."</p><p> </p><p>"You are a good match," Kate says one day, a hair tie between her teeth as she deftly braids Bella's hair. "She was right to keep you."</p><p>Bella hums softly, but doesn't say anything more.</p><p>Doesn't confess that her thoughts still burn with crimson, and it has nothing to do with blood.</p><p> </p><p>"I have lived for an eternity already," Tanya tells her one night, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder on Bella's bed, television lighting the room. Her hand is warm in Bella's. "But I would gladly live for eternities more, if you were a part of it."</p><p>The night is quiet around them.</p><p>It is just the two of them, alone, in a magical moment that could be their forever.</p><p>"Tanya," she begins.</p><p>"I always knew you would destroy me," Tanya says, soft as winter's first snow. "I just didn't know it would hurt so much."</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>One day, she works up the courage to ask.</p><p>"How long have you known?" </p><p>Tanya breathes in the scent of her hair. "Since before we ever met."</p><p>"Have you told them?"</p><p>"No." Tanya gathers her tighter to her. "It is not my story to tell."</p><p> </p><p>"How is he?"</p><p>"I don't think he will ever be the same," Tanya replies, honest. "He loves you."</p><p>Bella looks at the horizon, the grass tickling her thighs. "We were a lifetime ago."</p><p>Tanya looks up at the sky.</p><p>She smiles, bitter, raw. "We live very long lives, Bella."</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The day she kisses Tanya is they day they both know she's leaving.</p><p>"This is it, then?" Tanya breathes, cupping the side of her face. </p><p>Bella gives her a sad smile.</p><p>"It's a shame, you know." Tanya smiles back, the expression of a woman whose life has fallen to devastation around her. "In another life, you could have been everything."</p><p> </p><p>And she is right.</p><p>Tanya is kind, gorgeous, and so unbearably lonely that, in another life, Bella would have died again just to chase the shadows from her eyes.</p><p>She could have been Bella Denali.</p><p>Could have lived forever with a woman with warm eyes and soft heart.</p><p> </p><p>But this is not that life.</p><p> </p><p>She joins their hands. "I'm sorry."</p><p>"Don't be." </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They see her off with the sunset.</p><p>"You're always welcome with us," Kate says, releasing the tight hug, shoving her.</p><p>Bella giggles as she's pushed into Carmen and Eleazar's arms.</p><p>"I will miss you guys."</p><p>Her voice only wobbles a little.</p><p>"It's only natural," Eleazar replies, patting her head. "But family are family, even when one of them leaves."</p><p> </p><p>(Eternity is a long road.)</p><p>(This is one she's certain she'll travel again.)</p><p> </p><p>"I will see you guys again," she says, turning to Irina.</p><p>Irina smiles. "And we will very much look forward to it."</p><p>Tanya leans against Irina's side, wiggles her eyebrows. "If things don't work out—"</p><p> </p><p>And Bella laughs, light and bright, whirling around in a whip of hair.</p><p>"Goodbye, Tanya."</p><p> </p><p>Guided by tethers she can't see, she disappears towards the crimson horizon.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It is Bella's turn to chase her, this time.</p><p>It is a reverse, a backwards loop, in the tale they've been weaving.</p><p>(Their beginnings and their endings are ever overlapping, an ouroboros devouring its own tail.)</p><p>(A good a description as any.)</p><p> </p><p>Helpless, as ever, Bella follows where she leads.</p><p>And so, their dance begins anew.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>She almost catches her a few times, in rushes of red hair and a scent like wildflowers.</p><p>But Victoria is smarter, better, has played this game before.</p><p>She strings it out for months. </p><p>They move up and down and around, never consistent, with no destination in sight.</p><p> </p><p>It is a whirlwind romance, of a sort.</p><p>A tale told in bodies with red-lipstick on their cheeks and deer in the woods with broken necks, offered like sacrifices. </p><p>If Victoria is the shore, then she is the wave; drawn back in again and again, no matter how often she pulls away.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>And, in the end, it spirals back to midnight in Arizona.</p><p>She finds her at a late night café, with a barista who's half-asleep and a homeless man hunched down in a booth.</p><p> </p><p>Victoria sits at a table, nursing a long-cold coffee she can't drink.</p><p>Her feet are bare, the jacket she's wearing certainly stolen, eyes as red as ever.</p><p>"You've kept me waiting."</p><p> </p><p>Bella sits down across from her.</p><p>"You're a very hard woman to catch."</p><p> </p><p>(There is so much between them, a tangle of unforgivable and unforgettable, sprawling ever backwards and ever forwards.)</p><p>(Bella doesn't taste it on her tongue anymore.)</p><p> </p><p>"Do you remember?" Victoria asks, eyes burning crimson against gold. </p><p>Bella doesn't need to ask. "Of course."</p><p>She tilts her head, the collar of her jacket gaping, revealing the thick, ropy scar.</p><p> </p><p>Victoria smiles, slowly, with the perfect teeth to match it.</p><p>"Then say it."</p><p> </p><p>Bella reaches out, places her hand on an upturned one, links their fingers together.</p><p>There is blood under Victoria's nails.</p><p>There is dirt under her own.</p><p> </p><p>"I'm yours."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So, uh, wow.</p><p>This might be my magnum opus. </p><p>This possessed me, quite literally. I tried to stop writing so many times, but I was always sucked back in minutes later. It is experimental and rough, but it is everything I wanted.</p><p>If I never write again, this story will have been worth every word.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>